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MAJOR GENERAL n, 



Anthony Wayne, 



THIRD GENERAL-IN-CHIEF OF THE UNITED 

STATES ARMY SINCE THE ADOPTION 

OF THE CONSTITUTION. 



■ BY 

BREV. MAJ. GEN. J. WATTS de PEYSTER, 

HONORARY MElVliER DIAGNOTHIAN LITERARY SOCIETY, FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



REPRINTED FROM "THE COLLEGE STUDENT," 
FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE, LANCASTER, PA., OCOTBER, 1886. 



LANCASTER, PA. 

STEINMAN * HENSEL, rRINTERS, CENTRE SQUARE. 
1886. 




"ROSE HILL" \r]^^=>'TIVOLI P.O. 
DUCHESS Co.. N. V 



10 



Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne. 

THIRU *GENERAL IN CHIEF OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY SINCE 
THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 



" Unhlamf.d through life, lamented in the end." 

that is blameless in the eyes of all competent 
to judge and lamented by every cla.ss, it is 
questionable if the Thirteen Colonies, or 
States, produced or possessed a more trust- 
worthy executive -soldier, in the broadest 
sense of the term, than Anthony Wayne, or 
if Pennsylvania can boast of a finer represen- 
tative man. As an executive-soldier in the 
field he was ajjproached but by one, "the 
military genius of the Revolution," whose 
versatile instinctive capacity was acknowl- 
edged even by the Briti.sh, "the brilliant 
Arnold," "whose high military qualities 
were now [after Saratoga] generally recog- 
nized," (Lecky iv. 66,) who "fought, as he 
always did, with eminent courage and skill," 
(Ibid iv. 67). "To any one who atten- 
tively follows the letters of Washington, it 
will appear evident that there was no officer 
in the American army of whom for a long 
period he wrote in terms of higher, warmer, 
and more frequent eulogy. Arnold was in 
truth an eminently brave and skilful soldier, 
and in the early stages of the struggle his 
services had been of the most distinguished 
kind. In conjunction with Colonel Allen, 
he had obtained the first great success of the 
war, by capturing Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point, in the summer of 1775. He had fal- 
len wounded leading the forlorn-hope against 
Quebec on the memorable day on wiiich 
Montgomery was killed. In the gallant 
stand that was made at Ticonderoga in Oc- 
tober, 1776, he had been placed at the head 
of the American fleet, and his defence of 

•The FIRST General in Chief of the Armv was Lt.-Col.- 
Commandant of Infantry under the Confederation, Josiah 
Marnier, of Pennsylvania, Brev : Brig: Gen : by resolve of 
CoHRress 31 July, 1787. Defeated hy the N. VV. Indians 22 
Oclr: 1790, and greatly blamed he resigneti i Jan'y, 1792. 
The HKCONI) (^.eneral in Chief of the Army was Continental 
Major Cieneral Arthur St. Clair, born in Kdinburg, Scot- 
land. Terribly defeated in a disastrous expedition against 
the N. W. Indians, in 1791, be resigned, slh March, 1792. 
On that date Coiilinenl,al Brig: Gen: Anthony Wayne, Esq., 
became Major General and Thiud General I'n Chief of the 
U. S. Army. 



Lake Champlain against overwhelming odds 
has been one of the most brilliant episodes 
of the American war. He took a leading 
part in the campaign which ended with the 
Capitulation of Saratoga, led in person that 
fierce attack on the British lines on October 
7, 1777, which made the position of Bur- 
goyne a hopeless one, was himself one of the 
first men to enter the British lines [the sally- 
port of the " Great Western " or " Breyman 
Redoubt"], and fell severely wounded at 
the head of his troops." (Lecky iv. 145.) 

The only Pennsylvanian military man 
who is comparable to Wayne was Andrew 
Atkinson Humphreys, who commanded the 
combined 2d-3d corps at the close of the 
"Slaveholder's Rebellion," and was Chief 
of Staff of the Army of the Potomac for i6 
months under Meade, and who, and no other 
general from that state, possessed equal com- 
bined comprehensive ability. The ancient 
wisdom of the Indian philosopher declares 
"It is Maya, the evil of deception which 
blinds the eyes of mortals" and thus blind- 
ed they are led about by public opinion, in 
most cases the the most wilfully erroneous 
guide as to the individual merit. Democracy 
wants to level every one down to its own 
low plane of mediocrity and only makes 
heroes of its creatures of accident or of those 
that pander to its suffrages. Wayne was 
not of this kind. His individuality was 
complete. " Ordinary men" remarks Pascal, 
"can not discover the difference between 
men." Ordinary men could not gauge 
Wayne. 

Wayne was destitute of the equanimity 
and in some respects exquisite policy of 
Washington ; of the clear-.sighted political 
judgment of Schuyler great in patient pre- 
paration ; and of certain remarkable re- 
cuperative ([ualities attributed to Greene. 
As continental generals, these three only, 
can enter into a comparison with Wayne. 



Major General Anthony Wayne. 



Still neither of them, after all said, accom- 
plished as great results as he did with as 
trifling forces and resources. Not even 
Washington's magnificent operations at 
Trenton and Princeton, which the great 
contemporaneous German, military writer 
and critic, declared were "alone sufficient 
to elevate him to the Temple of Immor- 
tality" are superior, totus in toto, to 
Wayne's campaign of 1782 in Georgia. 
"To reinstate, as far as might be possible, 
the authority of the Union within the limits 
of Georgia" Wayne had given him " 100 
regular dragoons, 300 undiciplined Georgia 
militia, and about the same number of state 
cavalry." " The offer of a force, so obvious- 
ly inadequate to the purpose, would by most 
men have been certainly regarded as a hard- 
ship, and probably as an insult; but from 
Wayne not a syllable of complaint or objec- 
tion was heard. The command was accept- 
ed, not merely with professional submission, 
but with the almost alacrity ; when, substitut- 
ing activity for discipline and skill, and bold- 
ness for numbers, he in the short space of five 
weeks drove the enemy from all his interior 
posts, cut off Indian detachments marching 
to his aid, intercepted the forays of his main 
body, and, on the land side, penned him 
up in a great degree within the narrow limits 
of the town of Savannah." 

A general can display the grandest charac- 
teristics of his profession at the head of a 
few hundred men as well as if in command 
of thousands or myriads ; and Wayne truly 
showed himself greatest when he seemed the 
least, as at the South; and, here, let it be 
remarked that the South has always been 
saved, even from itself, by the North ; dur- 
ing the Revolution from Great Britain and 
through the " Slaveholder's Rebellion" from 
itself, for the South has profited more by the 
"Great American Conflict" than has the 
North, as time will show. 

Wayne was always equal to any emergency 
and never fell below himself. Very few 
heroes in the whole history of the world can 
show such an even, unstained, honorable 
record. Wayne is an almost unknown charac- 
ter to the American people ; as was observed 
by an able critic, "a warlike but not a mili- 
tary people." The very epithet or soubri- 
quet applied to Wayne, "Mad Anthony," 
proves how little he was understood. He was 
undoubtedly the spirit of "potential fight." 
"Where Wayne went there was a fight al- 
ways; that was his business." It might be 
said of him in petto, what was observed of 
Akbar (greatest king of all who sat on the 



throne of Moguls) xwtnagnifico, — "although 
constantly at war he never lost a battle." 
His were the principles of Cromwell and 
of Suworrow, "greatest soldier Russia 
has ever produced," whose watchword 
was " Stupay y bey," (advance and strike,) 
and yet Wayne also exhibited the tenacity 
of "our greatest and our best," George 
H. Thomas, "the Rock of Chicamauga;" ^ 
likewise the determination of that victor ") 
of that the only really decisive victory \ 
of the Rebellion, to prepare before striking 
in spite of popular and official clamor. 
Nevertheless, rare combination ! his striking 
valor was tempered by sound discretion. 
Every field on which he was engaged ex- 
hibited the clearest testimonies of his intre- 
pidity and alacrity; and, but not less so, of 
vigilance and prudence in "getting a good 
ready;" in every operation or expedition en- 
trusted to him his prudence was proved by 
extraordinarily wise preparation. He be- 
lieved on one occasion with Duke Valentine, 
who was wont to say : "The more time to 
prepare, the less [time is required] to exe- 
cute." His popularity and the nickname, 
"Mad Anthony," was derived from his cap- 
ture of Stony Point, in 1779. It was com- 
memorated in a Creed curious and almost 
blasphemous, showing the trust placed, at 
the time, by his countrymen in him and* 
the bayonets of his command. It was cer- 
tainly a bold feat, but honest critical exami- 
nation of the circumstances demonstrate 
that the achievement was grossly exaggerated. 
However it was most opportune and its moral 
effect was like a circle in the water at home 
and abroad. Washington, in a private letter, 
considered that at no time as yet had the 
affairs of the Colonies presented a more 
gloomy aspect than at this juncture. It was 
in this moment of darkness that a brilliant 
stroke was necessary, and Wayne by his 
meteoric success lighted up the obscurity 
thickened by "an almost unbroken series of 
misfortunes in the field." It was also hailed 
as an omen that in Wayne's column there 
were men from almost, if not from every 
one of the original Thirteen States. Every 
section could plume itself from the event. 
It was one of those cases to be taken ad- 
vantage of as Bonaparte did of his passage 
of tlie Bridge of Lodi, — on which, by the 
way, he himself was not present, although 
represented leading the charge, bearing the 
National colors. The astute Corsican sent 
to every Department (county) in France the 
names of the soldiers who hailed from it 
and had participated in the charge at Lodi, 



Major General Anthony Wayne. 



so that every locality would be interested in 
celebrating the event. Stony Point exerted 
) a similar influence throughout the Thirteen 
Colonies. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all the glory of 
this "storm," Wayne's fame rests on far 
prouder and much firmer bases than the 
ephemeral brilliancy of his capture of Stony 
Point. He was greater in Canada in 1776; 
in New Jersey in 1777; where "in the 
summer of that year Wayne and Morgan 
bore off the honors"; on the Brandywine, 
at Chad's Ford ; near the Warren Tavern ; 
• in .saving all that was saved at Paoli; — where 
Wayne was not to blame for anything that 
was lost ; at Germantown ; at Monmouth, 
"where Washington and the whole army felt 
and acknowledged Wayne's services" ; even 
in the aff;iir of Fort Lee in 1780*; in sup- 
pressing the Mutiny of the Pennsylvania 
I.iiie in January 1781 ; at Green Springs in 
July 1 781 ; in Georgia in 1782 ; and against 
the Indians in i7g3-'4. 

Wayne's crushing defeat of the North- 
western Indians on the banks of the Miamis 
of the Lakes near the Rapids, 20th August, 
1794, who had hitherto as crushingly 
worsted his predecessors, was his crowning 
glory and the last great act of his exemplary 
military career. About two years after- 
wards, Wayne died at Presqn' Isle, ijth 
December, 1796, sixteen days less tlian 52 
years of age, regretted by the whole nation. 
Union or Confederacy, " in the full vigor 
of life, in the noontide of glory, and in the 
midst of usefulness. 

One of the acutest critics of our history 
pronounced "Wayne the most honest [or 
> disinterested] soldier in the Revolution" 
i and declared that "he saved the [second] 
administration of Washington by his man- 
agement of Indian affairs, and victory on 
the Miamis." 



*There are some curious circumstances connected with 
Wayne's attack u])oti a Block House at Bull's Ferry, near 
Fort Lee, in 17S0. .Major Andre liad written a sarcastic 
poem, poking itni at Wayne lor liis partial failure entitled 
the " Co7ii Cnasff" dated Klizahethtown, [New Jersey], 1st 
August. 17S0. It was divided into three cantos. The last 
was puhlished in /iivinj^ton's (Jazftlc, New York, on the 
vef y day that Andre was captured by men who properly 
lielonge'd to Wayne's command, and, it not mistaken, 
W.une was oriRinally assigned to, or intended as a member 
of that Court Martial which condemned Andre to be Imn^. 
*rlie concluding verse of the " Onv Chase " seemed al- 
most prophetic : 

" And now I've closed my epic strain, 

1 tremble as I show it. 

Lest this same warrio-drover Wayne, 

Should ever catch the poet." 

Under the endorsement of Andre himself, to an original 
copy of the " Co7u Cliasr^' in his hand writing, some one 
after the execution of the author, appended the lour fol- 
lowing lines : 

" When t!ie epic strain was sung, 

The poet by the neck was hung ; 

And to his cost he finds too late, 

The dung-born tribe decides his fate." 



Wayne's Battle of the Miamis deserves to 
be placed among the decisive battles of 
American history, and therefore of the world. 
It determined the whole future history of the 
valley of the Ohio and of the Mississippi. 
Had it resulted differently the American Con- 
federacy (for as yet it could scarcely be .said 
to have become nationalized,) would have 
been confined to the region between the 
Alleghanies and the Atlantic ; if, indeed, 
failure in the contest with the Indians, 
backed by the English, had not led to its 
dissolution. It established Washington's 
second administration, and it is difficult to 
.see how any cflective government could have 
been formed which had not Washington at 
the head of it. The liberal Rockingham 
ministry of Great Britain, when it assented 
to American Independence, looked forward 
to a reunion of England and the Colonies 
at no distant date. The course which it 
pursued on our Western frontier is not recon- 
cilable with the idea that it cordially as- 
sented to American Independence. Wayne's 
victory on the Miamis changed forever the 
views of England in that quarter, overturned 
the British policy in connection with our 
Western frontier, clinched the question of 
American Independence and settled every- 
thing, everywhere, at once and forever. 

Michelet, in his philosophical history of 
France— in which almost every concrete 
sentence presents food for thought — remarks 
that the severe justice of history often re- 
verses the verdicts given by popular caprice, 
and the_ frivolous ojjinions too often the 
result of the passions and prejudices of con- 
temporaries. Honest history — because, with- 
out impartiality, it becomes degraded into 
the propagator of falsehood — should consti- 
tute it.self a guardian of the tomb and a pro- 
tector of the dead. In the murderous climate 
of Portugue.se India, there wa.s an official 
known as the "Administrator of the pro- 
perty of the deceased." Large or little, 
there is no one but leaves something, ma- 
terial or moral, which has a right to claim 
protection. In the former case, the law 
ste])s in ; in the latter, the magistrate is 
history ; and the dead are among those 
mis/'ra/'iks pcrsonce,\mior\.\\\ys{<ii, over whose 
affairs, according to the Roman Law, the 
special magistrate is bound to exert his care. 
It is such a sacred duty to exalt Wayne to 
his proper place in tnie American history. 

There is scarcely a distinguished person- 
ality in the American Revolution who has 
not received more attention, deserved or un- 
deserved, than Wayne — yes, perhaps with 
theexception of Schuyler, very much smaller 



Major General Anthony Wayne. 



men have received far greater consideration. 
Even Benedict Arnold has found a liberal 
and efficient biographer in the late Hon. 
Isaac N. Arnold, President of the Chicago 
Historical Society. Wayne's exceeding 
services have been either underestimated or 
misunderstood. American Biography and 
History, if indeed we have any history worthy 
such an exalted title, have not accorded 
to Wayne anything like his full meed of 
praise. The very popular epithet of ' ' Mad 
Anthony" shows how little the masses knew 
of the man. The Indians of the West, 
children of nature, comprehended him far bet- 
ter. Deriving their similes from objects which 
impressed them in their daily life, they called 
liim " the Black Snake, which, in our country, 
is the most cunning, the boldest, the quick- 
est, and the most powerful of its species. It 
is not venomous, but a constrictor ; will 
grapple with the rattle snake and choke it to 
death and, under certain circumstances, does 
not hesitate to attack a man and attempt to 
throttle him. The Indians also named 
Wayne ''the Wind" or "the Tornado," 
one of those blasts of which the terrible 
effects in the West are so often noted in the 
newspapers. The Pottawattamies declared 
that "Wayne was exactly like a hurricane 
[tornado], that drives and tears, and pros- 
trates everything before it. ' ' 

Another characteristic of Wayne was his 
exceeding promptness. This biographical 
sketch, however favorable, is far from being 
an eulogy. If space permitted, original au- 
thorities might be quoted to any extent to 
substantiate a finer threnody. 

By very many — whether correctly or in- 
correctly — everything was held to depend 
upon the success or failure . of Arnold's 
treason, which was discovered late P. M. 
25th September, 17S0. On this occasion 
Wayne acted an important part, as he wrote 
to a friend : 

"The detached and debilitated state of 
the garrison on West Point insured success 
to the assailants [the British]; the enemy 
were all in perfect readiness for the enter- 
prise, and only waited the return of Andre 
to carry it into execution. The 26th was 
the day fixed on for this exploit, and the 
discovery of Arnold's treachery was not 
made until late on the 25th. At 12 o'clock 
of the morning of the 26th an express 
reached General Green from his Excellency 
[Washington], who had fortunately arrived 
at West Point on his return from Hartford, 
to push on the nearest and best disciplined 
troops, with orders to gain the detail or pass 
over the Dunderburg before the enemy. The 



first Pennsylvania Brigade moved im- 
mediately, and on the arrival of the second 
express I [Wayne] was speedily followed by 
our gallant friend. General Irvine, with the 
second brigade. Our march of sixteen miles 
was performed in four hours, during a dark 
night, without a halt or man left behind. 
When our approach was announced to the 
General he thought it fabulous; but when 
assured of his loth Legion being near him, 
he expressed great satisfaction and pleasure. 

"The protection of this important place 
is committed to the division under my com- 
mand until a proper garrison arrives. We 
will dispute the approaches to the works inch 
by inch, at the point of the bayonet, and if 
necessary, decide the fate of the day in the 
gorge of the defiles at every expense of 
blood. You may rest assured that whatever 
may be the issue, neither the conduct of my- 
self nor gallant assistant will ever require 
the palliation of a friend or cause a blush on 
the cheek of any affectionate acquaintance." 

Such promptness on the part of a com- 
mander and such marching without strag- 
gling on the part of the troops is very re- 
markable. It has been observed that the 
reason why the French republican armies, — 
officers and men, offspring of the first en- 
thusiasm of emancipated liberal ideas, until 
they were used up in the e.xecution of his" 
selfish purposes by that arch traitor to liberty, 
Napoleon — were so marvelously successful 
because in the universal devotion to a cause, 
which every man considered his own, every 
one, from general to private, used all possible 
endeavors to assist and support a colleague, 
or a comrade. Where good will was required, 
no orders were necessary. With the Empire, 
"envy, hatred and malice, and all unchari- 
tableness " came in with titles, appanages, 
ribbons, privileges, &c. Professionals, belong- 
ing to a hierarchy, linked to each other by 
chains so that no one could escape even if 
he would — like the foremost ranks of the 
Cimbri at Vercelli, 30th July, loi B. C. — are 
incapable of such disinterested, voluntary 
co-operation. They may yield it to each 
other for selfish ends, but not to the outsiders 
for the general good. Too many instances 
of such a baleful spirit were witnessed during 
our great war for the suppression of the 
"Slaveholders' Rebellion." One such crime 
committed at a crisis, has been condoned by 
caste and politics, omnipotent for injus- 
tice and cruelty. As the French General 
said of the British cavalry charge at Bala- 
klava : " It was magnificent but it was not 
war. ' ' There was a great deal of magnifi- 
cence from private to general, in the '"'Great 



Major General Anthony Wayne. J? 

American Conflict," but, whether due to however, the wisdom of Washington. Just 
politics or to the people, it wa-s not war in its as the Venetian government used to send a 
truest, strictest, grandest, scientific expres- confidential official to supervise commanders 
sion. There were notable examples of the whom they mistrusted ; — the Carthaginians 
same causes and effects during the Revolu- did the same likewise the Dutch, and it is 
tion, and the Loyal North exhibited more said that Lincoln or Stanton, unfortunately 
real patriotism in 1860-5, ''^'"^ ^'^^ ^^ sometimes, followed their example. Wash- 
shown in the annals of i775-'82. ington detached his military secretary and 

For instance, Wayne never got the credit aid-de-camp to serve as a balance-wheel to 
he deserves, for his influence upon the cam- Lafayette; and then, as soon as circum- 
paign against Cornwallis in Virginia. "The stances i)erniitted, Wayne with reinforce- 
great, the gallant, and the good " Cornwal- ments, was dispatched to dry-nurse him 
lis was indubitably head and shoulders as. Traun had been dry-nurse to the 
above all the British generals in America. Princes Charles and Francis in the wars 
Howe and Clinton, his superiors were ele- against Frederick the Great. Of Lafay- 
gant on the field of battle; could win vie- ette's doings in Virginia, Lord Mahon 
tories. Cornwallis could do more ; he could observes, "To slip away from a superior 
improve them. Napoleon, who hated the force, by dint of good intelligence [an ad- 
English and had good reason to do so, pro- vantage the Rebels superlatively enjoyed 
nounced the highest attest of the grandeur 1861-5, in the same state] and celerity of 
of soul of this great Englishman.* movements, is no high military exploit ; it 

Michelet, an exemplar of a directly oppo- 'l''^'^ highest however, that, as the leader 
site extreme of thought, is equally lauda- °[ ^" ^™Y' ""story has to record of the 
tory. Hestyles him "the gentle and honest Marquis de LaFayette This success- 
Cornwallis," " that honest man full of '^""^' ^ '^■''f Cornwalli.s, to whom in re- 
merit," "the benignity of that perfect gen- al'ty must it be attributed .' To Major Mc- 



tleman, Cornwallis." That British General 
in 1 781, had advanced northward from the 
Carolinas into Virginia, prefiguring the so 
much lauded march of Sherman in 1864. 
Had he been untrammelled in command 
with a wiser and bolder superior than Clin- 
ton, he might even yet have been too much 
for Washington and-Rochambeau, America 
and France. "Might" is used in deference 
tQ general opinion, "would" is the proper 
expression. Against the great Cornwallis 
Washington sent Lafayette, who was neither 
a great man nor a wise man ; neither men- 
tally nor morally strong. Washington was 
very politic, and his predilection for La- 
fayette may have been based in some de 



Henry sent with the French nobleman as a 
pedagogue .' Who now is able to tell .' Lord 
Mahon bears such testimony to the charac- 
ter of Cornwallis, as is corroborated by all 
honest observers. "In him the want [ques- 
tionable] of shining talents was, in a great 
measure, supplied by probity, by punctu- 
ality, by a steady courage, by a vigilant at- 
tention to his duties." Against this noble 
soldier Wayne was pitted, and that he came 
off with shining colors attests his own merit. 
At Green Spring, near Jamestown Ford, 
Cornwallis would have annihilated La- 
fayette had it not been for Wayne's extra- 
ordinary judgment and intrepidity. Every 
action, every battle, every campaign, and 



gree in affection, but it was mainly founded every vvar hinges on some circumstance ; 
on policy sometimes grand but more often trivial in 

With a French army co-operating with appearance. The decisive point and mo- 
an American army in a great measure paid Sll"L° „_'^^,T!!■.!'""' ^'^"^P^^'g" '^'"^ Green 
and armed by France 

coming up in support ; was it not exquisite 
policy to send the French Marquis to com- 
mand where the French were soon to take a 



with a French fleet Spring, and Wayne s soldiership was the 
diamond pivot on which it turned to the 



ultimate discomfiture of Cornwallis. Viewed 
without prejudice with a determination to 
do simple justice there can be no doubt of 
the fact. 

. The mistaken popular judgment as to 
the characteristics of Wayne is not more 



principal share in the operations.' Mark, 

*Kor an exalted but just characterization of this noble 
EnKlishnuin, see " Last Ninety Days o( the War [Slave- 
holder's Rebellion] in North Carolina," by Cornelia Phil- . -i • ., , •, ,• ', ■ 
lips Spencer, [who says she wrote with the Order Book of Striking than the idea Ot hlS personal ap- 
Cornw.allis before her), New York, Watchman Publishing npnnnrp Hp ivtc r./-il ]ii-rrn Jv, K^.^,- n^ 1,., 

Company 1866. See Lecky, on Cornwallis, iv., 203 ; " X pearance. tie was not large m body as he 

very truthful man. " " Washington viewed with much was in mind, but rather only a little abovc 

alarm the presence of this darniir soldier in Virginia," .t,.^ „^;^jl^ • ^i . . • 1 , 

(Ibid 205,) •' Green SpriuK" (Ibid J12,) Magnanimity (ibui '"^ middle Size, rather stout, With a plump 

'57) On the oth«b.vnd, (or a proper estimate of L.a- face and whole-souled expression. With 

Fayette, consult " Kapp's Life of Steuben," also Lord , • ,, , ,• , i">..aaiuii. >iiiii 

M.ihon, especially the latter, vi., 151-156, etc. nis well-set-uj) soldierly person he presented 



8 



Major General Anthony Wayne. 



a striking figure, and when aflame with the 
fire of battle he exerted an electrifying in- 
fluence. A gentleman in his instincts and 
chivalric in feeling, he was affable and 
agreeable and endowed with a spirit capa- 
ble of lifting his inferiors and associates to 
his own high level. Without being a Mar- 
tinet he was a strict disciplinarian and lov- 
ing style infused it into his command. 

Buffon observes " the style is the man," 
or " Style is the whole man," as the 
phrase reads in Montgaillard (vii. 321). 
He used the expression in a restricted sense. 
In its most comprehensive signification the 
apothegm is applicable to Wayne. His 
style was General Anthony Wayne. 

Perhaps the best illustration of the style 
of Wayne appears in a letter from Wayne 
10 Washington, wherein he offers to waive 
rank, if necessary, and serve on the staff 
of the Commander-in-Chief or anywhere 
his services can be useful to his country. 

Again, Wayne was a vir auctoritatis, 
that is a man not only ordering matters di- 
rectly by authority, but exercising power 
indirectly, more by personal influence than 
by what is almost universally understood 
of the term which in its comprehensive 
bearings exhibits one of the peculiar nice- 
ties of the Latin language. 

Finally Wayne was truly a man of com- 
mon sense, which " common sense is a 
measure of the possible ; it is composed of 
experience and provision ; it is calculation 
applied to life." This is Amiel's defini- 
tion. Wellington's is better : " Common 
sense ! that is most uncommon sense." No 
doubt of that. 

This sketch of Wayne would be incom- 
plete without a few details and dates with 
which having to fit in a Procrustian bed 
it will conclude. 

Wayne's ancestry belonged to York- 
shire, England. His grandfather emigrated 
to County Wicklow, Ireland ; held a com- 
mand in the Dragoons at the Boyne ; emi- 
grated again to Pennsylvania, and settled 
in Chester county. His youngest son, 
Isaac Wayne, died in 1774. The only son 
of this Isaac, General Anthony Wayne was 
born in Easttown, Chester county, Pennsyl- 
vania, ist January, 1745. After a bois- 



terous youth, at 18, in 1763, Wayne began 
professional life as a land surveyor. In 
1765 he was sent as agent and surveyor by 
a wealthy association to Nova Scotia. At 
21, 1766, he married Mary Penrose; in 
1774 he was one of the Provincial Deputa- 
tion and Member of the Pennsylvania 
Convention. In 1774-75 '""^ represented 
his native County, Chester, in the Colonial 
Legislature. Wayne was chosen Colonel 
of the 1st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volun- 
teers, which he disciplined and organized 
for service, and when war became certain 
Congress accepted the regiment as Third 
of the four constituting the Pennsylvania 
Line. In 1776 Wayne was in Canada and 
distinguished himself. In January, 1777, 
Wayne was created Brigadier General and 
commanded at Ticonderoga. In May, 
1777, Wayne joined Washington in New 
Jersey. His subsequent services have al- 
ready been set forth or alluded to so far 
as space will permit. As stated, he died 
at the U. S. Military post at Presqu' Isle, 
after an active public life, civil and mili- 
tary, of ^^ years, of which the majority 
were devoted to the service of his country 
and about ten passed in the field. 

The forgetfulness of this people as to 
Wayne recalls a sentiment expressed by 
James Thomson, 1744, in his "Tancred-& 
Sigismunda," 

" The death of those distinguished by their station, 
But 6y their virtue more, awal^es the mind 
To solemn dread, and strilies a sadd'ning awe ; 
Not that we grieve for them, but for ourselves 
Left to the toil of life — and yet the best 
Are, by the playful children of the world. 
At once forgot, as they had never been.''' 

J. Watts de Pevster, 

Brev. Major General, S. N. Y. 
Honorary member of Diagnothian Literaiy Society 
of Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. 



Note — Supplementary : Lying before the writer 
is a veiy rare and curious book, entitled " A Com- 
pendium of Military Duty, adapted for the Militia of 
the United States," by Jonathan Rawson, Esq , late 
Aid-de-Camp to General Sullivan, printed at Dover, 
New Hampshire, in 1793, dedicated "To the Hon- 
orable Anthony Wayne, Esq., Major General of the 
Army of the United States of America, as a Testi- 
mony of Respect to his person and Esteem of his 
Military Abilities." 









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